In the 1997 film, Liar Liar, Jim Carrey starred as Fletcher Reede, a scruples-free lawyer whose young son, Max, wishes that, for just one day, his dad would tell the truth. Max’s wish is granted. Fletcher flips from mendacity to veracity. He tries persistently to lie; his Silly-Putty® face contorts wildly, but he can only blurt out truths. Hilarity ensues, life lessons are learned, and the Reede family lives blissfully ever after. Fast forward to Washington DC, November 2014. Young Max, now a manly Millennial, remorseful for having sat out the mid-term elections, and disgusted with the politicians’ threats and counter-threats on immigration, makes a new wish: For just one day, one Republican (John Boehner) and one Democrat (Barack Obama) must only speak the truth. The wish is granted. The usual round of press conferences and TV appearances are held, and questions are asked of President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner.Mr. President, you’ve said that, given the failure of Congress to enact immigration reforms, you will use the full extent of your legal authority and take executive actions before the end of the year to fix our nation’s immigration system. What specific actions will you take?

President Obama:

Before I answer that, let me admit a few things. I promised to push for immigration reform during my first year in office, but didn’t. I blamed Congress for failing to enact immigration reforms, while claiming that I lacked authority to disregard the laws on the books. Hoping to show Republicans that I could be tough on immigration, I became the “Deporter in Chief.” But then, a few months before the last Presidential election, I did what I said I could not do and authorized the Homeland Security Department to roll out a program for Dreamers known as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). That move brought out Latino voters in droves and may well have been the proximate cause of my reelection. Pressed by immigration activists to stop breaking up families by deporting parents, I asked the Secretary of Homeland Security to study alternatives. Then I deferred action on his report, and then I deferred executive action in the summer, and deferred again in the fall at the behest of endangered Democrats who worried that they’d be trounced in the mid-terms. It didn’t matter. They were trounced anyway, and I’m now facing a Congress controlled by the GOP. So having learned that I must talk truth on immigration, here’s what I’m going to do very soon. I’ll order reforms that allow a 2.5 million to 5 million undocumented to receive work and travel permits (except for recent arrivals, hardened criminals and terrorists). I’ll authorize measures that will speed up — ever so slowly — the immigrant visa backlog. I may allow early filing of employment-based green card applications. This would grant professional and skilled foreign workers and their families work and travel permission sooner than now. But they’ll still be stuck in the waiting line just as long and won’t get green cards until their visa numbers are current. I could recapture 600,000 or more immigrant visa numbers that my own and previous administrations squandered by not using them before the end of each fiscal year. I could say that spouses and kids would not be counted in the employment-based green card quota. I could make USCIS stop denying benefits to people on technicalities or imagined grounds of ineligibility. I haven’t decided on these yet. Of course, I’ll describe these executive actions as generous within the bounds of the law. I know that I’ll be accused of having bypassed the Republican Congress on immigration reform. Some in the media will say it’s ”Caesarism” or “caudillismo.” But others will come to my defense. Still, the constitutional law professor in me worries that I may be going too far, and that some future Republican president will use my action as precedent to ignore the Constitution and take the country off a cliff.

Well Max got his wish and two seasoned pols told the truth for a day. Does it change anything? Not really; we know these truths to be self-evident. The ultimate truth is that howsoever President Obama’s executive actions and the Republicans’ reactions on immigration play out, the American people must stand up and hold our “leaders” accountable to fix our dysfunctional immigration system through well-conceived legislation.

Bipartisan outrage erupted in the House last week, with usually loyal Republicans among the most furious and outspoken in the GOP-controlled chamber. Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican, chastised House leaders for conduct that is "absolutely inexcusable . . . absolutely indefensible." Declaiming that "we cannot just walk away from our responsibilities," King said that "anyone . . . who contributes one penny to congressional Republicans is out of their minds."

There is only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims: the House majority and their speaker, John Boehner . . . This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. . . . We respond to innocent victims . . . , not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans. Or at least we did until last night. Last night, politics was placed before oaths to serve our citizens. For me, it was disappointing and disgusting to watch.

The object of their criticism was the House's failure to pass bipartisan legislation, already approved in the Senate, that would grant financial relief to victims of Hurricane Sandy. Their words, however, could apply with equal vehemence and accuracy to the House's other major year-end failure -- its refusal to vote on renewing and expanding the Violence against Women Act.VAWA, as it's known, has been an undeniable success since signed into law in 1994 by President Clinton under the sponsorship of then Senator (now Veep) Joe Biden. The incidence of domestic violence has dropped 67% from 1993 to 2010, and, according to the White House, from 1993 to 2007, "the rate of intimate partner homicides of females decreased 35 percent and the rate of intimate partner homicides of males decreased 46 percent.” The House GOP, led by its Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, opposed various elements of the VAWA-extender bill that passed overwhelmingly in the Senate: the bill's provision of domestic violence protections to members of the LBGT community and undocumented immigrants, and a section that gives American Indian tribes jurisdiction over non-Native defendants in cases alleging domestic or dating violence. The House version that purported to reauthorize VAWA (HR 4970) would have harshly restricted the immigration-related protections of the law. As the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence against Women explains, there are several key failings of HR 4970:

Section 801 eliminates crucial confidentiality protections for victims in the VAWA self-petition and cancellation of removal processes who are married to U.S. citizen or Legal Permanent Resident spouses. By requiring notification to the alleged abuser that his/her spouse has filed a VAWA self-petition, this endangers victims (many of whom may still be living with an abusive spouse since their options are extremely limited as a result of their undocumented status). It would also allow abusers to continue to manipulate the immigration process as a tool of abuse by providing them an opportunity to block her access to legal status. Additionally, it creates duplicative and unnecessary bureaucracy by dispersing VAWA adjudications from specially trained officers in a centralized unit, and increases barriers to

safety for vulnerable victims by imposing a stricter standard for approval of VAWA cases than for other forms of humanitarian relief under immigration law.

Section 802 imposes arbitrary and unreasonable barriers for victims, and undermines the law enforcement purpose of the U visa, by narrowly restricting the circumstances in which law enforcement certifications can be issued.

Section 806 discourages crime victims from cooperating with law enforcement, especially in complex or dangerous criminal investigations or prosecutions, and eliminates stability for vulnerable crime victims by terminating their eligibility for permanent residence.

Section 814 burdens victims and existing state criminal court processes addressing domestic violence by discouraging plea bargaining. Because this provision will allow evidence outside the criminal conviction record in determining if someone is deportable due to a domestic violence conviction, it will be impossible for defendants to know whether to accept a plea. The resulting additional criminal trials will result in more victims being forced to face their abusers in criminal cases and most likely, more abusers who do not face any type of conviction when victims are fearful of appearing in criminal cases.

Sections 803 and 804 . . . omit critical amendments that were included in S. 1925 [the Senate bill] to prevent serial abuse and exploitation of so-called “mail-order brides” and other immigrating foreign spouses and fiancé(e)s of US citizens, as well as abuse of the visa system.

When the GOP hue and cry over Sandy burst out, John Boehner and Eric Cantor quickly took steps to make amends. On January 4, the House passed a bill (with the Senate also concurring) that set aside $9.7 billion in relief for regions that Sandy devastated. On January 15, Speaker John Boehner reportedly will bring up a vote for $51 billion more in Sandy relief measures, as requested by President Obama. Where is the outrage over VAWA? With Republicans claiming to have heard and now to understand the increasingly pro-female and pro-immigrant voices of the new electorate, the VAWA debacle suggests that the GOP is still clueless. Are the "innocent victims" of domestic violence any less deserving than the post-Sandy constituents who will soon get relief?

Channeling Peter King and Chris Christie, I say it is "absolutely inexcusable . . . absolutely indefensible" for the House GOP to have "walk[ed] away from [their] responsibilities. . ." to victims of domestic violence. "This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. . . . We respond to innocent victims . . . , not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans. Or at least we did until last [week]. Last [week], politics was placed before oaths to serve our citizens. For me, it was disappointing and disgusting to watch." America is a forgiving and tolerant nation -- to a degree. The House GOP needs to wake up quickly, and pass a bill reauthorizing VAWA in the image and likeness of last term's Senate version. Or else this party of "angry white guy[s]" will only hasten its flight to irrelevance.

President Obama had a macho moment this week when he suggested, rhetorically, a poll of ghosts. "Ask Osama Bin Laden" and the "22 out of 30 top al-Qaeda leaders who've been taken off the field," he proposed, "whether I engage in appeasement." The storied bugaboo of foreign-policy appeasement, best typified by the flaccidity of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the face of Nazi aggression, was the GOP charge that the President debunked so handily.

_Would that he were so forceful against Republicans on the immigration front, where a foreign policy challenge morphs into a domestic concern, one that starts at both the water's edge and the nation's earthly boundary. This time his use of drones and boots on the ground to fortify and defend America's borders successfully has produced nothing but a failed effort at GOP appeasement.

Presidential swagger would be more impressive if he used his clout to circumvent GOP-erected gridlock in Congress. Imagine if he decided to eschew drones and troops and went low tech. Imagine if he looked back among the weapons of his and every American boy's childhood and pulled out his lowly pea shooter. Rather than appease, he could shoot peas -- fresh green orbs of power in the form of executive orders that he alone propels from the White House. No more appeasement but fusillades of executive (made-to-) order peas that would sprout the jobs he so desperately needs created pronto to save his presidency.

Some might argue that he's already begun the effort by authorizing ICE and USCIS to exercise prosecutorial discretion (PD) more frequently in favor of leniency for low level immigration violators. But that effort has yet to fire off enough salvos to hit the target. It would be better to accelerate PD reviews, expand them to include all the unauthorized among us rather than the current triage of only 300,000 deportation cases, begun as a timid six-week pilot project in Denver. Moreover, he should order the agencies to grant the formal status of "deferred action" (which includes the right to a work permit) rather than just PD (which merely prolongs the individual's agony by preventing them from progressing in their lives and pursuits, but only allowing them to wait to the unknown day when the grim deporter returns for them).

He could also aim his shots at the legal immigration system. Nothing but his own policy of GOP immigration-appeasement prevents him. He seems to understand the concept, as his "We Can't Wait" campaign addresses housing, student loans, energy efficiency and health care. There are gobs of jobs he could create if he turned his sights to tweaking the employment-based immigration laws, as I suggest in this post, "Executive Craftsmanship: Job Creation through Existing Immigration Laws," and video:

_Why is President Obama so un-macho on immigration? Alas, maybe he's just too wim-pea.

Steve Jobs launched his massively successful "Think Different" rebranding campaign for Apple in 1997 with a TV commercial and this script:

Here's to the Crazy Ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world...are the ones who do!

Alejandro Mayorkas, the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), recently announced with the flourish of a press release an ingenious "Think Different" initiative that may well transform this vexed and vexing immigration agency. His announcement heralded the new Entrepreneurs in Residence Program (EIR), an experiment that will tap the wisdom and experience of seasoned startup veterans to inject fresh air and fresh insights into USCIS.

The EIR, as the press release explained, "will utilize industry expertise to strengthen USCIS policies and practices" affecting foreign "investors, entrepreneurs and workers with specialized skills, knowledge, or abilities." As Director Mayorkas explained, the "initiative creates additional opportunities for USCIS to gain insights in areas critical to economic growth . . . [with the] introduction of expert views from the private and public sector [which] will help [USCIS] to ensure that our policies and processes fully realize the immigration law's potential to create and protect American jobs." A two-stage effort, the EIR begins as a "series of informational summits with industry leaders to gather high-level strategic input" and then the heavy lifting follows with the assembly of a "tactical team comprised of entrepreneurs and experts, working with USCIS personnel, to design and implement effective solutions."

The EIR occupation of USCIS cannot come a millisecond too soon. Just like a Dream Act kid who keeps getting blamed for the mistakes of her undocumented parents, USCIS, only nine years old, keeps receiving many of the same brickbats that bombarded its ancestor, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Unlike the DREAMers, however, USCIS has magnified INS's peccadilloes and committed new more egregious ones of its own. Ted Chiappari and I describe the venial and mortal sins of USCIS at length in our article, published last week in the New York Law Journal, "Intubation and Incubation Two Remedies for an Ailing Immigration Agency" (link courtesy of ALM Enterprises).

Whether intended or inadvertent, EIR is a deft stratagem, even more artful than Clintonesque triangulating. Cleverness taken to the fourth degree, EIR, captured in one word, is all about quadrangulation. If it is to succeed, EIR must task its occupiers to infiltrate and attack from within the four-sided challenge that is USCIS today: (1) the immigration stakeholder community and the USCIS Ombudsman clamoring for more user-friendly enhancements to fusty USCIS interpretations of work-visa eligibility, (2) the ever-campaigning President saying "we can't wait" for the enactment of job-creating legislation, (3) Socialism-incliningRepublicans in Congress, led by GOP commissars Smith and Grassley, who seem, counter-intuitively, to embrace immigration regulation more than job creation, and (4) the agency's anti-business, unionized adjudicators who prefer chaos theory over customer service.

Who will Director Mayorkas tap as the EIR's movers and shakers to prod, awaken, reeducate and redirect USCIS? As noted in the NYLJ "Intubation/Incubation" article, ideally they should be "industry leaders" with just the right background:

[Entrepreneurs who] harbor a strong interest in an expansive reading of the employment-based immigration laws. Their likely interpretation would view the immigration laws as offering many opportunities to grow startup and established businesses in the U.S. by harnessing the innovations and skills of bright, energized and talented non-citizens. Prospective EIR participants with such interests and perspectives probably will have already used and intend to use again the employment-based immigration laws to secure USCIS's permission to hire foreign workers.

As the EIR experiment in intramural administrative sport begins, an October 29-30 Wall Street Journal editorial ("The Other Jobs Crisis") captured spot-on the immigration dysfunctions that beset America today. Migrant farm workers flee Alabama and Georgia, two states with nativist laws that cause produce to rot in the field. With few Americans willing to descend to back-breaking stoop labor, "incarcerated criminals" are dragooned to "work the fields." Republicans in Congress, the supposed "champion[s of] deregulation and business-led growth" focus on "immigration control" as "one of their main passions," while continuing "to ignore the economic costs" and the need "to overhaul the guest worker program to widen avenues for legal immigration." Meantime, ironically on www.WSJ.com, GOP Presidential front-runner and pizza-chain turnaround artist, Herman Cain, callously rebukes the Occupy Wall St. protestors: "If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself! ... It is not a person's fault if they succeeded, it is a person's fault if they failed."

Like his Chief of Staff, Herman Cain is just blowing smoke. He should know that not everyone can find a job in a nation with a 9.1% unemployment rate (but if Cain is truly "counter-factual" on the cause of U.S. joblessness, he is manifestly unfit for the presidency). America desperately needs more job creators, the salutary byproducts of a functioning, business-friendly immigration system. Since Congress will not act, and the President can't wait, my hope is that Director Mayorkas will install "demented" entrepreneurial occupiers of USCIS, "Crazy Ones" who "are crazy enough to think they can change" America by occupying his benighted agency.